Its 5 years now since Radio Jackie North's owner and founder rick dane died in tragic circumstances (16th Nov 2002), thats a story which you may want to read about on the internet, I myself met rick 26 years ago, and it was only thanks to Merseyland Alternative Radio which was on 266 metres medium wave that I even discovered Merseyside Pirate Radio as a whole, then one day whilst working at my mum and dads shop in Liverpool fixing radios of all things, I heard this radio station totally overpowering my radio, it was playing music like no other station on the band, and the guy talking with an authoriative voice and knowledgable about his music mentioned that it was a pirate radio station, I thought, wow another, whats happening here?, there are now 2 in Liverpool and non from anywhere else in the country, it was of course Rick Dane on 217 metres medium wave with his Radio Jackie north. The music was tight, the jingles were tight, exciting, fast and somehow familiar, and by the letters that Rick red out, I could hear that people writing in were of a local origin, but also many from so far away, he even read one out from Amsterdam - so now, not realising that medium wave skips at night, I started to wonder what power he used, as i had dabbled in simple transmitters as a kid using el84 valves which went to the bottom of my garden! Anyway I can only talk really about Rick Danes life from my own observations I guiess. One day whilst on MAR I got the opportunity to do a rock show on MAR at 9pm at night, I was filling in for someone at the time that week, and by sheer luck Rick Dane was doing a range test with his mates driving round liverpool for his own Radio Jackie, and he tuned to hear what the signal was like from MAR and to his surpirse he heard rock music too, probably just the timing etc, as I dont think there was much in the way of heavy rock on MAR at the time, Rick then phoned the owner of MAR at the time to ask what was going on, and Rick was perhaps a little upset too that a pirate radio friend was playing the same type of music ... In fact I have to admit, I myself did not even realise that Rick Dane was still on RJN at 9pm at night from 11am in the morning, he must have literally spent all week recording his shows onto c120s. Anyway to cut a long story, I ended up getting a job on Radio Jackie north as Rick needed Djs to fill in and give him a break, and MAR were ok about this, Pirates helping PIrates, and so started many months with Rick Dane on Radio Jackie. The first time I met him at his mum and dads house in Cantril farm Liverpool, this guy with long red hair (who initially reminded me of David Coverdale from Whitesnake facially) answered the door, and I was made up to meet ones sort of hero, rather like I would be made up to meet Sharon Osbourne nowadays, (without her hubby!). Rick took me to his studio, and I could see the workings of Radio Jackie, hundreds of c120 cassette tapes in those days being recorded on with shows, wall to wall records, and posters all over ricks bedroom of his rock idols, including one of Marianne Faithfull all in leather which was on his ceiling ..... Rick dane and I chatted about pirate radio, transmitters and many many other exciting things involving radio, we talked about Bert who had the best signal on medium wave and the best quality ever, and tried to work out Berts special techniques but to no avaial, and then agreed times and hours to do shows for Radio Jackie, that was a friday night wouid you believe at 8pm and I had to rush home to my young wife and babies and try to get 4 shows done for the next day and drop them off at Ricks house prior to 10am - not very good for ones marriage and fatherhood, but still exciting for me as you can imagine, My Mrs was ok about it though, so I recorded 4 shows on c120s and rushed back over for 9am to drop off the shows. Rick took me to his location which was a 23 storey block of flats at 11am, started up the transmitrers and i was amazed to see that the whole station was ONE mono cassette recorder, a load of c120s and a 2 yes 2 valve transmitter with 807s in. While the shows were playing, we were walking round the entire block of flats carrying radios, what a buzz, it was like a licence to broadcast, Rick seemed to have keys for many of the empty flats, he also has his own rented flat anyway. he took me onto the roof of the 23 storey flats and I just wish we had digital cameras in those days, somehow at that height you really do feel the potential audience that you are broadcasting too, and that was in the days whern radio really did rule, remember FM was new, most car radios were AM, there was no sky satellite, no freeview, no DAB and no internet radio,. the world was for the taking, we just did not realise how much we could have taken at the time.... Having had a tour of the Radio Jackie empire which was really the entire blocl of high rise flats in cantril farm (cannibal farm as steveW calls it), Rick showed me his own flat there which he rented from the council, the transmissions were not coming from there, and in his flat I noticed many many pictures of a pretty girl, which turned out to be his girlfriend and the love of his life, Jane, he said I could meet her one day, but she was out in town at that time, Rick had given her some of his dosh from advertising to go and get herslf kitted out in town as a peace offering for all the hours he put into Radio Jackie. This prompted me to ask "well how much time does Radio Jackie take of your hours Rick and does it effect your relationship with Jane", and he sort of avoided the question, so i knew instinctivly he was neglecting his girlfriend for radio, the way i neglected my own wife with radio. Rick did give me some idea though of the hours involved with Radio jackie north, The entire weekend was taken up morning to night sitting with his own tapes at the Radio Jackie location, Rick said he used to put a c120 on, rush over to his mum and dads house on foot for summit to eat, and rush back again just in time to change the tape. How Rick would have loved a pc in those days, he could have loaded 20 hours of shows into the pc, and left it, and you could guarentee that it would not (then) have been touched or raided in those days either, but technology was such that the longest break he could have away from the playout was an hour from changing the tape to changing the next tape, and even that he masterfully could do within 5 seconds. So how much time did Rick Dane dedciate to his radio career, besides the entire weekend being taken up sitting with the playout cassettes, he then spent 20 hours a week recording his shows, which really took 40 hours, due to the preparation, another 20 hours trying to obtain advertsiing revenue, and the rest of the time maintaining his transmitter(s), putting up new aerials which inevitably would get pulled down due to one reason or another during the week. and I have to admit I only ever ever heard Radio Jackie north go off air once in 12 months, and that was for techncial reasons anyway, in fact a blown fuse casued by rick putting a 3kw heater on in the flat and having an electric kettle on at the same time. So as you can see Rick did not spend that much time with his girlfriend Jane, which of course had bad side effects later on in his radio career. SO rick was delighted when i did take the burden off him by doing 8 hours a week out of the 20 hours and sitting with my own 8 hours of tapes, and why not, I would normally be at home listening to my shows, so why not at the flats listening, and yet I never gave a thought to the most importrant people in my life , my wife and young kids, in the same way as Rick felt he must have neglected his own girlfirend and perhaps his aging mum and dad too. On one occasion Rick showed me how he could totally disgise the flat in use for the radio station by routing coax to the roof of the cantril farm flats, I dont know how he did it and yet there were coax connections to many of his empty flats going to the roof, and on the roof would be the long medium wave aeril wire often going to a lampost or horizontally across to another block of flats. Rick said to me the ideal power was when the OTHER end of the aerial was high up, it did not matter how low down the beginning of the aerial was, as long as the other end was high up. I was talking to Steve West the other day, who told me some great stories, one of which was that one day Rick Dane stood on a load of polystryene and then put his tongue on one or each of the 807 valve caps to see if there was power, in the same way as some people test a 9volt battery with their tongue (dont do this at home kids!). Rick was also not frightened of heights, I have genuienly witnessed him climbing on a balcony of one flat and reaching up for the next one, as they were fairly close by due to there being 23 storeys - you can imagine my whole life passed by in one second, but Rick had no fear. Steve West apparently nearly lost his life one day when he was on the roof with Rick, and i think Steve was holding coax or aerial wire, and Steve slipped and nearly went over 23 storeys - thank god the angels saved him as we would not be here today telling you these stories. After a few months, Radio Jackie was more popular then ever as there was now a selection of djs giving Rick even more of a break, but the station had become the way Rick did not want it to, there were too many lettters coming into the station, genuienly one week I receieved 110, and Rick said just to read them briefly, but becasue I appreciated the listeners taking the trouble to write, stick a stamp, post the letter, I ended up reading the whole letter, which to the listener must have felt great, attracting even more letters, a vicious circle really. In the end it was more talk than music, then i started playing music which was not really right for the station (10cc, and soft rock), and rick gave me my marching orders. In a way, I was glad that he did, I did not want to let him down, but knew I was neglecting my own family, so was glad to be able to leave, but we stayed friends anyway, and then drifted apart, until 1990 when we met up again for a whole new ball game. So what happened after Radio Jackie North, well from memory Rick appeared in 1985 on Atlantis102.7 which was radio station owned by Davo and with radio jocks Steve Bishop and Tony Hayes, Colin Sayer, Roy Stanya, but I wouild say Ricks biggest success has to be Atlantis 252 Medium Wave starring Rick and Steve Bishop and others, which had a superb signal, it was based in West Derby, and extensively caried out advertising to keep the station on air, with a very very wide choice of music to appeal not just to rock fans as did RJN, but to everyone (this was perhaps at the request of the advertisers) as it was unusual to hear Rick Dane playing Tamla Motown, Soft rock, Hard rock and even reggae with the main focus on the charts and 60s classics, Atlantis 252 carried on for almost 2 years, and with the help of Steve Bishop using high rise flats in Tuebrook Anfield and Kirkdale it was at one point in time 24 hours .. great station, and a great adventurous life for Rick Dane who later appeared on MAR around I am guessing at 2001/2 One of ricks all time faves is Led zeppelin - kashmir. Hope you enjoyed the spiel of a snippet of Ricks life, we would like one day perhaps to feature his life story on this website, as mentioned Rick Dane (Eric Haydock) founder of Radio Jackie North 217 Medium wave Liverpool, died on November 16th 2002, and this is yet another website dedicated to his radio adventures, which literally did rule in the early 80s.